Chapter Ten

HENRY Winter went to Germany to buy fancy leather goods for the large departmental store to which he belonged. He went from place to place unhindered, a short fat man with a bald head, sincerely welcomed by all who had to do business with him and quite unnoticed by anyone else. In late November 1935 the Exchange was no longer so favourable to the foreigner in Germany as it had been, but he was still able to buy advantageously goods which would sell profitably in the English market. He spent a few pounds on the carved wooden and ivory goods of the Black Forest area as an experiment to see if they would go, bought, as he always did, a present for his wife, in Cologne this time, and settled himself with a sigh of relief in the train for the frontier, homeward bound.

“I’m always glad when I’ve completed a buying tour,” he said. He had made acquaintance with a German commercial traveller in the same compartment, he usually found someone to talk to, for he was a sociable man. “It’s a great responsibility, and though I have always given the firm satisfaction so far, one always wonders. It isn’t as though it were one’s own money one is spending.”

“It is evident from what the Herr says that he is a conscientious man,” said the German politely, “and the efforts of such men always deserve appreciation.”

“It isn’t enough just to be conscientious. One has to use imagination, for it is a sheer gamble to try to please the public.”

“It is a gift, not a gamble, to be able to please the public. Besides, you speak our language so well.”

“I ought to,” said Winter with a laugh, “I spent nearly three years learning it. I was a prisoner of war.”

“Were you indeed? I myself fought on the Western Front. Where were you captured?”

“Near Souchez in ’15. You know, just north of Arras. I was out with a wiring party, when----”

“Souchez in ’15? Why, our lot were down there in ’15. Let me see, that would be August onwards. August the 22nd if I remember rightly.”

“Oh, I was captured before that. May the 12th, not likely to forget that date, eh? You see, I was out with----”

“May the 12th? Why, my brother was near there then. He was killed on the 30th of May. I wonder if his lot gathered you in. What regiment were they, d’you know?”

“Well, it was like this. I was out with a wiring party, when all of a sudden----”

After which the conversation proceeded on the lines customary in all war reminiscences. “Gave us bread and soup----” “My father was a sergeant of Uhlans, terribly proud of it.” “Awful boredom, couldn’t stick it. So when I was sent on a farm----” “I was wounded in ’16----” “Thawing out frozen turnips----” “The British blockade----” “Decent old fellow, used to write to him till----”

When at last the train slowed down for the frontier station at Aachen Winter said, “Never known this trip pass so quickly. See you again after we’ve passed the customs? Right. Damned nuisance, these customs. There, see how talking over old times brings ’em back, don’t believe I’ve said ‘damn’ for ten years except when I’ve hit my thumb with a hammer or some such. Well, see you later.”

Winter pushed his suit-case across the counter to be searched for surplus currency with the unconcern of habitual innocence, and waited for it to be passed. He was very much taken aback when the customs officer asked if he would please step into an inner room, there was a little difficulty. They would not detain him a moment. If he would just step inside and sit down, it would only be for a moment. . . .

Winter, protesting volubly, was pushed into the inner room. He sat down, fuming, on one of the hard chairs and was preparing a neat speech for the customs official’s superior officer, when he heard the key turned in the lock.

---

Hambledon reached home rather late for lunch that day to find Fräulein Rademeyer rather fidgety.

“I’m so sorry,” he said, “to have kept you waiting. You should have started without me.”

“I would rather wait, I detest eating alone.”

“I’m sorry,” he repeated. “I was busy, the time passed before I was aware of it.”

“You are always so busy these days, even in the evenings. Can’t you take a little time off sometimes?”

Hambledon sighed inaudibly. The old lady was very dear to him, but as the years passed she became more feeble in body but not in spirit, and the increasing limitation of activity was most irritating to her. Besides, it was true, he did leave her alone a great deal.

“I’ll take a whole day off early next week,” he said. “We’ll pick a fine day, drive out somewhere and have lunch. You are quite right, it’s an age since I had any time to myself.”

“That will be very pleasant,” said Ludmilla. “I cannot think it is good for you to work so hard and come so late to your meals. It is nearly two o’clock.”

“I’m sorry,” said Hambledon again, glancing at the clock. It was later than he had thought, in five minutes’ time the Cologne train would stop at Aachen for the usual hunt through travellers’ baggage to see if they were taking more money out of Germany than was permitted by the regulations. Suppose that funny little man Winter had changed his mind and broken his journey somewhere. Suppose Ginsberg had had one of his gastric attacks and been unable to do his job. It might sound a simple matter to undo the lining of a suit-case, slip some papers inside, and do it up again so that it did not appear to have been tampered with, but it took an expert to do it properly. Ginsberg had been apprenticed to a firm of luggage makers, what a find! It was only necessary to tell him that he was concealing secret orders for transmission to German agents abroad for him to take an artist’s pleasure in the work. Now the ham-handed Schultz----

“Klaus dear, would it be too much trouble to talk to me when you do come in? I have had no one but the servants to speak to all the morning.”

“I am a complete pig, Aunt Ludmilla. I am a mannerless baboon. If it wasn’t for certain physiological objections, I would say I was a cow, too. I have had a difficult case to deal with this morning with both sides lying themselves purple in the face, and I was still trying to make up my mind which of them was lying the worst. But that’s no excuse for being rude to you. Tell me, what are you going to do this afternoon?”

“I am going to a recital of some of Chopin’s Nocturnes and Preludes, and two Beethoven sonatas, by a famous foreign pianist who has never been in Berlin before. I wish you could come with me.”

“You don’t really. You remember too well what happened last time you tried to educate my taste in music. I snored.”

“You were overtired, dear. It was unkind of me to insist on your going.”

“That’s a nice way of putting it, but you know what the Frau Doktor Gericke said.”

“The Frau Doktor Gericke is an evil-minded old cat,” said Ludmilla energetically. “As though you were ever the worse for drink! I told her that if that sort of thing was customary in her household, it wasn’t in mine, and that if she fed her menfolk properly she wouldn’t have so much trouble with that wild Leonhard of hers. Of course, I didn’t know that their cook had cracked his head with a rolling-pin the evening before or I wouldn’t have said it, but——”

Hambledon roared with laughter. “You didn’t tell me that! Where did this exchange of courtesies take place?”

“At Christine’s flat. I went there to coffee by invitation, but Alexia Gericke simply walked in. Christine didn’t like it, but, of course, she couldn’t do anything.”

“Then what happened?”

“Oh, Christine started talking at the top of her voice about the reclamation of sand-dunes by planting some sort of grass. You know, her father was an expert at that sort of thing and used to lecture about it. He couldn’t read his own writing so Christine had to copy out his notes for him when she was a girl, she’s never forgotten them. You wouldn’t, you know. So whenever conversations take an awkward turn Christine talks about sand-dunes till it’s blown over.”

“Frau Christine is a dear.”

“She always was. Which reminds me of something quite different. Klaus dear, don’t be annoyed, will you? But I cannot abide that horrid old man creeping about the house. Must we have him?”

“Reck? I am so sorry. He is a clever man really, you know. He has had a sad history and I’m sorry for him. Besides, he is useful to me.”

“If you really need him, Klaus, there’s no more to be said. Only he does look so disreputable, and I’m not at all sure that he is always sober.”

“I’ll see that he gets some new clothes and smartens himself up.”

“His hair wants cutting, too.”

“It shall be cut. As for not being sober, if he ever shows anything of that in your presence, out he goes. I would, however, rather keep him under my eye if I can. He will go to the dogs if I turn him out and I don’t want that on my conscience.”

“You are too kind-hearted, Klaus. I will try and be sorry for him too and then I shan’t dislike him so much. If I were to knit him some socks, do you think----”

“You darling! He doesn’t deserve that. Heavens, look at the time, I must go. Mind you enjoy your high-brow entertainment. Who are you going to hear?”

“I can’t pronounce his queer name, but here’s a programme. It has his photograph on it, look.”

Hambledon took the programme carelessly, glanced at the photograph, and then looked intently. Dixon Ogilvie’s name was beneath it, but that was unnecessary for Tommy Hambledon, once Modern Languages master at Chappell’s School. The photograph showed a man in the early thirties, but there was little change from the other picture which rose to Hambledon’s mind of a tall, skinny, untidy boy to whom music took the place occupied in the hearts of other boys by toffee, food and cricket, a boy who wouldn’t learn French and couldn’t learn German---perhaps the guards at the prisoners’ camp at Thielenbruck had been more successful teachers.

“A nice face, isn’t it?” said Fräulein Rademeyer, who was wandering about the room collecting tickets, gloves, two pairs of spectacles and a purse, and did not notice Hambledon’s expression. “I should think he’s a nice young man, wouldn’t you?”

Still no reply, so she looked at him, crossed the room quickly and laid her hand on his arm.

“What is it, my dear? Do you think you remember that face?”

“Perhaps,” said Hambledon, rousing himself. “It’s rather unlikely, isn’t it? A chance resemblance, probably.”

“He might be a friend, or some relation,” she said.

“But he’s English,” said Hambledon, looking at her curiously. “That would mean I was English, too, and that’s impossible.”

“I suppose it is,” she said slowly.

“Would you mind very much, if I turned out to be English after all? You’d hate it, wouldn’t you?”

“No, why? The war’s over long ago, Klaus dear, and you and I have been happy together for a long time.”

“I’m glad you think like that,” he said. “I shan’t be so afraid now of---of getting my memory back.”

She laughed and patted his arm. “You don’t know much about women, do you, Klaus? Besides, the English are quite respectable people. Won’t you come with me and see him for yourself?”

“No,” he said, “no. I do very well as I am, and besides, I have business to attend to this afternoon.”

“Very well, dear. And don’t worry, your memory will come back some day, I am sure of it. How tiresome it will be, learning to call you by a new name.”

“You never shall----”

“Good gracious, look at the time. Tell Franz to call a cab, will you, while I put---I shall be late---they won’t let me in till the interval----”

She scurried out of the room while Hambledon shouted to Franz to call up a taxi, and himself walked back to his office. He pushed the thought of Dixon Ogilvie out of his mind for the present and returned to the subject of Henry Winter. By this time the little man should have been released, have passed the Belgian customs, and should now be sitting in the slow local to Brussels, having lost the boat-train. No doubt he was horribly cross, probably he was bouncing gently on the seat and emitting a faint sizzling sound. Never mind, they also serve----

---

“So I lost the boat-train to Ostende,” said Winter to his wife, “and had to take a slow local to Brussels. I caught a fast train from there but, of course, the boat had gone, so I had to stay the night. I went to the Excelsior Hotel, too expensive for me normally, but as it’s the off-season I knew the charge would be reasonable, and to tell you the truth, my dear, I’d been so worried and upset that I thought I deserved a little extra luxury.”

“Did you have an amusing time there, Henry?”

“No, m’dear. Very dull.”

---

Henry Winter had walked into the Excelsior on the previous evening shortly before dinner and asked, in his Britannic French, for a room for one night.

“M’sieu’ is alone?” asked the reception clerk.

“Completely alone,” said Winter.

He was still seething with a sense of injustice in spite of the floods of apology which had been poured on him at Aachen. His detention was a mistake, the locked door was a mistake, it was to keep people out, not him in, his being shown in there at all was a mistake and the official responsible should be reprimanded---degraded---dismissed the service. But Winter was not appeased. However, the reception which is accorded to hotel visitors in the off-season began to soothe him, and the excellent dinner, with a wine he’d never heard of before but which was recommended personally by the wine waiter, completed the cure. When he had finished the cheese and biscuits---and the half-bottle---he felt at peace with the world. After all, annoying contretemps must sometimes happen to every habitual traveller, the seasoned hands, like himself, look upon such things philosophically as all in a day’s work. He was a little ashamed of having been so flustered by it, the traditional British phlegm, he felt, must have unaccountably failed him for some reason. A touch of liver, possibly. He rose from the table, pulled down his waistcoat, and strolled into the lounge.

Since the stock of foreigners of any sort was a trifle low in Winter’s estimation at the time, he counted himself lucky to find another Englishman among the few guests present. The two men foregathered to discuss Hitler and play billiards till Henry Winter went up to bed.

The lift was one of those which starts each journey with an aggrieved howl, and Winter guessed rather than heard that the boy asked him which floor. “Third,” he answered, winding his watch on the way up to save time because he was sleepy. The lift stopped, Winter got out and walked along to his room.

He opened the door quietly, switched on the light, and noticed at once that his very ordinary brown suit-case on the luggage-stand inside the door had been closed again although he had left it open. He slid the catches and threw back the lid.

There came from the other side of the room an angry wail of feminine outrage and Winter jumped round to see with horror a woman standing beside the bed in the alcove, a woman, moreover, in an advanced stage of disarray. For a second he gaped at her, speechless with astonishment, then, “My good woman!” he gasped, in English, and fled the room, slamming the door behind him.

He hurried back to the lift, rang for it, and demanded to be taken to the manager instantly. “Instamment, sans delay,” but the manager was not there and had to be sought. Henry Winter marched angrily about the room trying to summon adequate French to express his sentiments. If only they spoke German he could have been so fluent . . .

The manager arrived. “Monsieur desire?”

“There is,” said Winter carefully, “a woman in my room. I do not want her.”

“Impossible,” said the startled manager.

“I thought,” said Winter, after one or two false shots at the past tense of a notoriously irregular verb, “I thought this was a respectable hotel.”

The manager said that it was truly an establishment but of the most decorous, but Winter merely snorted, saying that the woman must be taken away at once, “éprise” was the word he used, which defeated the manager yet further. “Je demands qu’elle sera, éprise.”

The manager called upon his Maker and added that there must be some mistake, to which Winter tried to reply that there was indeed a very serious mistake, but that anyone who imagined they could get away with that sort of thing with him would find they would---he found himself drowning in a tangle of subjunctives and tore himself free. “I won’t have it,” he said indignantly. “I don’t like that sort of thing. Je ne l’aime pas.”

“Is it,” said the manager, upon whom a false dawn unkindly broke, “is it that monsieur desires to part with his wife?”

“Heavens above, no!” stormed the baited Winter, in English. “She’s a stranger, I tell you. Elle est étrange, très étrange.”

The manager, making another desperate attempt to keep abreast of a situation which became momentarily further beyond him, asked was it that the poor madame . . . he tapped his forehead and suggested a doctor.

Winter, who was nearly a cot case himself by this time, shook despairing fists in the air. “Listen,” he said. “I have a perfectly good wife at home, but----”

“Mais oui, monsieur,” said the manager, sure he had got it right this time. “That is of the most undoubted. But monsieur is on holiday, and life is like that, is it not?”

“No, it isn’t,” howled Winter. “I tell you——”

At that moment the door opened violently, a well-developed young woman bounced into the room and set about the unfortunate manager in floods of French so rapid as to leave Winter gasping. He looked at her again----

“Here,” he said, grabbing the manager by the arm, “that’s the woman.”

She flung out her arm with a gesture worthy of Duse. “That---that is the man!”

“Hussy!”

“Scélérat!”

“Minx!”

“Ravisseur!”

“Madame,” said the manager, pushing his way between. “Monsieur! All is now clear----”

“He came to rob! He opened my case----”

“You have the wrong room,” said the manager firmly to Winter. “You were on the wrong floor----”

“Gobbless my soul,” said the deflated Winter. “I told the boy the third floor.”

“I am second floor,” said the lady.

“The little mistake,” said the manager airily. “She comes, does she not? Deuxième, troisième, what would you?”

“Madame,” said Winter, horribly abashed, “I am---I cannot tell you---I beg----”

“I beg monsieur,” said she with a dazzling smile, “not to distress himself. One understands, one pardons, is it not?”

---

“Very dull indeed,” said Winter to his wife. “Place half shut up, very few people there.”

“But quiet and comfortable, I hope. You caught the boat all right next day, though.”

“Yes, I got across all right but, believe it or not, I had more trouble over the luggage at Dover. I had some of the firm’s stuff to declare, of course, so after the customs people had examined everything I sent the porter along to the train with the boxes and my suit-case whilst I paid the charges. When I went on the platform myself I couldn’t find the porter or any of the luggage!”

“My dear, what an extraordinary thing. Didn’t you complain?”

“Complain! I’ll say I complained. I sent for the station-master, the assistant station-master and the foreman porter; the train was held up while every compartment and van were searched. Not a sign of them. Not any of them. I was ever so angry, Agnes.”

“You had every right to be, Henry. What happened then?”

“Well, eventually they had to let the train go when it was obvious the stuff wasn’t on board; I walked about at my wits’ end what to do, and chanced to go outside. I mean, to the station entrance, where the cars drive up, and there, just outside the door, was all my luggage neatly piled up. All by itself, Agnes, nobody looking after it.”

“And the porter?”

“Never saw him again, they couldn’t find him or something. Disgraceful! Scandalous! However, all the cases were there, so there wasn’t much harm done, I looked inside each one and they hadn’t been tampered with so far as I could see. Oh, Agnes, that suit-case of mine is getting shabby, the lining is split.”

“Oh, is it? Well, you’ve had it some time and I dare say we can get it mended. What happened then, did you have to wait for the next train?”

“No, as luck would have it there was a gentleman outside the station with a wonderful car, a sports Bentley he said it was, he’d missed the train himself and was going to drive up to town so he offered me a lift, and I accepted. He was ever so nice, I told him all about what had happened and he was ever so sympathetic. He even went out of his way to drop the firm’s boxes at the office.”

“How very kind, Henry, how fortunate, too! So much nicer than waiting hours for the next train. What was he like, Henry?”

“ ‘What was he like’! Oh, you women! Very tall, with a lazy manner and a tired way of talking as though it was almost too much trouble to speak, don’t you know, but a real toff and no mistake. I should think he’d been in the Army, still is, probably. We got on fine,” said Henry with a self-conscious laugh. “He simply insisted on my having what he called a spot of dinner with him before I came home. Went to a place called the Auberge de France in Piccadilly, I’d never heard of it before. Not much to look at outside, give me the Strand Corner House for that any day, but my hat, the cooking! And the service! Waiters everywhere.”

“What did you have, Henry?”

“Well, we started with . . .” and so on.

---

Denton took leave of Winter at one of the Piccadilly Tube entrances and himself repaired to the Foreign Office.

“Well, did you pacify him?”

“Oh, Lord, yes, quite easy, no trouble at all. Decent old fruit really. What’s in the kitty this time, anything exciting?”

“Don’t know yet, it’ll be up any minute now. Wonder where they packed it.”

“Oh, at Aachen, at the examination for currency. He told me all his troubles. They aren’t so subtle as we are, though, they just inveigled him into a back room and locked him up while they got on with it. I imagine he raised---here’s your plate of cabbage.”

They tore open the envelope which the messenger brought in, the contents informed them that Germany would march into the demilitarized Rhineland in March, in four months’ time, and at the same moment denounce the Locarno Treaty.

“Well, I don’t blame ’em,” said Denton. “How’d we like being forbidden to have a single soldier within thirty miles of the South Coast?”